"Lost City: The Discovery of Machu Picchu"
by Ted Lewin

Student Edition
Unit 5, pp. 542–553

Narrative nonfiction can tell the story of a real event, such as the discovery of a lost city in the Andes Mountains. Look for cause-and-effect relationships as you read.

Professor Hiram Bingham had a great curiosity about a long-lost city of the Inca. It was called Vilcapampa, and it was in the Andes of Peru. He wanted to be the first to discover it. So, in 1911, Bingham and his Peruvian Expedition set out. They arrived in Cusco, the first capital city of the Inca.
What Bingham noticed was a huge wall of stone. It was carved perfectly, even though the Inca had not had iron tools or wheels to move the giant stones. He was amazed. This must be what Vilcapampa would be like, he thought. He and his men went by mule train to an old village with terraced granite walls. He began to ask about ruins. Were there any to see? No one knew of any. He and his party asked for days.
Then one day a local farmer told them of good ruins at the top of the mountain called Machu Picchu. The farmer agreed to lead the group to these ruins. First he led them through thick jungle. They had to follow him across a shaky log bridge over a roaring torrent below. Then they went through more jungle. They cut through thickets and vines. The farmer told them to watch for snakes. They kept climbing. It grew so steep that the men had to crawl. Sometimes they could barely hold on.
Finally, the men reached a clearing. A young Quechua boy, a descendant of the Inca, stood beside a stone hut. He called out a greeting to them. He and his family gave the men water and food. Bingham asked about ruins. The boy smiled. He led the party into more jungle. Bingham grew discouraged.
Then, under the dense overgrowth, he saw more Inca stones. Then he saw walls. The boy led them to a temple to the sun. Still the boy kept going. "See, see!" he said over and over in his language. Bingham climbed a staircase to see a huge temple. He followed the boy to another. He kept climbing and looking. And then he saw the most glorious sight of all: an entire terraced city of stone streets and cottages. Vilcapampa!
But Bingham did not discover Vilcapampa after all. What the boy led him to was even more remarkable. It was the lost city of Machu Picchu, hidden by five hundred years of jungle growth.

From Lost City: The Discovery of Machu Picchu by Ted Lewin, copyright © 2003 by Ted Lewin. Used by permission of Philomel Books, A Division of Penguin Young Readers Group, A Member of Penguin Group (USA) Inc., 345 Hudson Street, New York, NY 10014.

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